Possible Drew Doughty Contract Theory

I thought of a strategy that Dean Lombardi could take in structuring Drew Doughty’s contract, but it’s predicated on two conditions:

Either parties would want a long term contract

The report that Drew Doughty wants to be the highest paid player on the Kings is accurate

The current highest paid King is under contract until 2015. Doughty could conceivably sign something like an 8, 10 or even a 15 year contract.

So, all Dean really has to do to technically make him the highest paid King is to give him over $6.8 million every year until 2015, at which point it could start to tail down to make the cap hit more reasonable affordable.

Still, I think Quisp’s point of signing Doughty to a three year deal could be an ideal scenario for both parties. Doughty won’t have UFA eligibility for four more years. Thus, if Doughty’s new contract expired in three years or less, he would still be protected as Kings’ property with RFA status. This is probably what Lombardi would prefer, in signing Drew to a short ‘show me what you got’ contract, like the one Jack Johnson got before his current long-term deal.

Of course, then we’d have to go through all of this again in three years.